


Recursion

by plsnskanks (orphan_account)



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, and also tom, robotom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-03 22:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/plsnskanks
Summary: It's short circuit savior part two





	1. Chapter 1

The cool wash of summer rain comes in with the slowly rolling change of seasons. Tord sighs and looks out the window in irritation. He was hoping to test a few things today but it looks like that is not destined to happen.

He turns his gaze back inside to see Tom idling on his chair looking out at the rain with a blank expression on his face. Not to say Tom was particularly emotive, since he was in fact, a robot with a much more finite range of expressions than someone of a more fleshy variety.

Tord still found himself trying to decipher his …. He didn’t exactly know what to classify Tom as. His creation? Sounded off. His friend? Clearly not. His lov- ahaha let’s not get ahead of ourselves now.

Tord sighed and put his head in his hands. He knew what Tom was. An effigy. And as soon as he found out, that was it. Tord could imagine his AI finding away to override the no kill protocol and strangle his chicken neck until Tord’s brain floated off into sweet oxygenless oblivion.

“Hey, I want to go out,” Tom said looking at him intently. Tord shrugged.

“I changed your settings last patch, if you want to go out, you can go out. I wouldn’t advise it due to wet not being a desirable quality for electronics,” Tord said.

Tom looked at him in annoyance, “You think I can’t intuit that my design is water resistant, I am a sex robot, I am built to withstand fluids.”

“You got me. You’re resistant but not water proof, keep that in mind, should you fall face down in a deep puddle, I doubt things will turn out well,” Tord said.

“So you’d let me… just go outside?” Tom asked quizzically.

“I would if you were actually going to.”

“What says I won’t?” Tom asked, tone turning ornery.

“Well apart from the slight randomization factor to your decision making, I know your self-preservation protocol is stronger and has about a hair’s chance of being overruled by your dumbass curiosity protocol’.” 

Tom rested back on the stool, looking annoyed yet thoughtful at the response. “Huh, you really know it all don’t you?”

“I know the code I wrote, I don’t necessarily know how it’s going to act,” Tord said. He’d like a smoke right now, if he is being honest. Being stuck indoors without a project to progress in tends to get him twitchy.

“So do I not have the ability to really surprise you?” Tom asked. “You know all my possible choices just not the one I’ll chose?”

“You’re talking to me like I’m some sort of god,” Tord snorted. “No I do not know all your possible choices, because your AI learns by itself and I don’t parse the data you store. In the event something goes terribly, horribly wrong, I can restore a monthly backup and try and trace back the fail state to its root cause. But as far as what my little meat brain can handle, I can’t predict you anymore than you can predict me.”

Tom continues to look introspective and while Tord would love to stay behind and pick his brain on his thoughts, his attention span is stuck at being microscopic and the lab air is starting to stifle him. So he gets up, lets Tom know he’s going out, and Tom is watching him open up an umbrella and walk out to his car. As the headlights come on and the sound of tires fade Tom decides he is about done staying cooped up in the lab all day as well.

He opens the knob and finds himself in Tord’s room. He’s been here a few times, notably when the house AC broke and Tord moved things out of the sweltering lab to his room. Tom eyes the room to see not much has changed when comparing it to previous recorded visuals he has stored on his memory drive.

He steps out of Tord’s room into a mundane looking hallway with photos lining the walls. He walks past them and finds himself face to face with a flight of stairs. This is his first real agility test in a nontesting environment. Sure, Tord had him go up and down simulated steps, leap over hurdles, all sorts of weird but not uncommon tasks in that vein. But he has never tried them in an organic setting and there is something making him weirdly giddy and excited to be here, trying this task alone and without some sort of supervision.

Tom takes his first step, and then his second. He is standing with both feet on the same step and while it occurs to him it isn’t the most efficient way to descend stairs, he can’t find himself caring all that much. This feels safe and right to him and maybe when he has conquered enough stairs to really get ballsy about taking them one at a time, he will do so.

But for now, Tom enjoys being upright and undented so he painstakingly makes his way down the stairs. His chest wells with pride as he reaches the ground floor. He can hear and sense the hum of the tv coming from one of the doorways. From the other doorway he processes the sound of clinking plates and behind that a lower pitched hum of a refrigerator. 

At least, his perusal of the internet tells him that is what a refrigerator sounds like. 

He heads towards the sound of the clinking and finds himself face to face with one of the faces he has seen in Tord’s memory sticks in various lights and shades, usually with a big, wide mouthed smile and scrunched up eyes that wrinkle at the edges.

“Oh, hello,” he says in surprise. He looks at Tom curiously. “Huh, wow Tord had mentioned but… I never anticipated-”

“That he could put this much effort into a sex robot?”

The man looked winded for a moment, doubling over with the affect of Tom’s words. “A wha- no way.”

“Edd!” he calls loudly as his body starts seizing up violently and then he finally erupts in boisterous laughter.

“Edd come in here,” he calls again.

A looming mass moves it’s way through the doorway behind him and comes around to the man’s side. This time Tom matches him with the face of a much more muted but still expressive face. Sly smiles, lidded eyes, wow Tord has… kind of a lot of pictures of this guy’s bare ass for some reason.

“What’s up?” Edd says as he looks at Tom curiously. 

“He just said,” hunched over with tears beading in his eyes, the other man struggled to get his words out, “he said Tord made him a sex robot.”

“He made a sex robot that is self-aware it’s a sex robot. Oh boy. And he looks just like Tom because of course he does” Edd rubbed the side of his face. Tom feels like he wasn’t made to process this kind of information all at once. He feels like his wiring is just going to short out all at once and that will be it because this is officially too much for him to handle.

“I’m Matt by the way,” Matt says as he straightens himself up. “Sorry about that, Tord always finds a way to subvert expectations.”

Tom regards them quietly without responding. He has a lot of questions but weeding them down to ask one at a time feels too overwhelming a task so Tom just allows himself to gawk a bit in silence.

“You alright there?” Edd says, clapping him on his metal back.

“He’s probably just as stunned as we are,” Matt chuckled.

“I am… a replica of someone?” Tom asks quietly.

Edd and Matt exchange a look. 

“Tord never told you?” Edd asked, brow starting to furrow as a variety of expressions cross his face. Tom takes a picture of each and back searches different emotions for a match. Hmm. Disgust. Anger. Amusement? Shock.

“He allowed me access to some of his drives and I saw pictures of you three on them but never anyone that looked like me?” Tom said. He felt like he needed to power down for a long while and process this.

Edd rubbed the back of his head looking at Matt guiltily. 

“Well, y’see Tord and Tom, uh real Tom, err,” Edd stumbles over his words looking at Matt helplessly and then back to Tom.

“It’s fine,” Tom says. He doesn’t really have the ability to process how this might be several levels of offensive at once but he is sure he will figure it out later.

“Thanks,” Edd says, giving him a small smile before looking to Matt to explain.

“Err, yeah, Tord used to date the flesh version of you, and then fleshy Tom disappeared to go run some army and Tord stopped seeing daylight for a while, and I kinda assumed he was just jacking it to hentai the whole time, but, uh, not this.”

Matt shrugged. “Not that this isn’t cool, I mean, you’re cool and all, really look well made and like your circuits run… fast,” Matt says.

“But this is over some line of common decency,” Edd says. 

“I get it,” Tom says, even though he really doesn’t. He can’t really grasp what a living faux pas he is, he can just measure the looks of discomfort in the faces around him.

Matt coughs in the suddenly dead silent room.

“Wow, Tord’s been out a while,” he remarks. 

“He went out,” Tom remarked. “His average time out is about two hours and thirteen minutes. It’s only been about an hour fifty from his departure.”

“Huh… so how does all this work?” Edd says gesturing at his whole body.

Tom blinks, “Would you like me to start at logic gate level or.”

Edd shakes his head, “Nah, nah, nothing that complex. Just like. Do you have to charge? How do you remember things? Got anything cool like jetpacks built into you?”

Tom shook his head.

“I do charge, but my average battery is pretty long lived. Well… batteries, I run on a series of modified power sources that last about a week. Tord is constantly trying to upgrade it to something more permanent but,” Tom shrugs. “It’s difficult.”

“My filing system is rather uncomplex and I can sort through it using a variety of sorting algorithms depending on what I need and a rough approximation of where. Most of the videos and pictures I take have location and date tags which makes things easy. And no. I do not have a jetpack.”

Matt looks at him timidly, as if he wants to ask a question but knows he shouldn’t.

“So uh, does Tord, you know, use you?”

Tom blinks, “For my designated purpose? Only once on accident. Since then no.”

“Wonder what kind of accident that would have been,” Edd said, highlighting the word accident with air quotes.

“He has a drive full of nearly nine hundred gigabytes of pornography and it messed with my sensors,” Tom said.

“I am not surprised,” Edd says, blowing out a puff of air as he swallowed a laugh.

Suddenly the door bursts open and Tord rushes in, barely taking a moment to process the fact that his friends have now met his living sex toy.

“Okay, uh, you gotta go,” Tord says, looking at Tom with a mortified expression. Oh. That’s new. Tom takes picture of that face and stores it in a hidden drive in his memory that has a variety of other Tord expressions. His hair is dripping wet and Tom can only imagine what he has been doing for the last two hours.

“I have to go? Where?” Tom asks him curiously.

Tord takes him by the arm, “Back to the lab, literally anywhere but here, right now, trust me it is not a good idea.”

“What exactly is not a good idea?” An unfamiliar voice rings out. It sounds like… the samples in his voice bank. Tom turns around and looks over his shoulder. Tord stiffens but doesn’t turn around.

“Ahah, hey Tom, how are things?” Tord says, small tremor in his voice.

“Things are good, who is this?” Tom responds. He continues to look at what he imagines he would look like if he were soft and peach colored.

The flesh version of him just stands and stares at him a long minute before turning back to Tord.

“Ah. So let me get this straight,” Tom says as he takes a step forward. Tord looks at him and wow google images says that expression is pants shitting fear, and that’s a new one for roboTom to see displayed on his creator’s face. Not unamusing.

“I leave to kickstart a revolution to better the world around us,” Tom says tilting his head in as he smiles and steps closer. “And you build a robot replica of me, not just that, one you can- and do- have sex with.”

“I was just keeping myself useful while you were away,” Tord proposes weakly.

Tom’s eyelids lower, “Oh this is useful?” 

“Something like that,” Tord offers. Tom seizes him by his sweatshirt, “Why don’t you come with me and I can show you how to be useful.” There’s a low tone of menace to Tom’s voice that has Tord barely able to walk along as Tom all but bodily drags him out of the house.

An idling jeep is in the middle of the driveway, headlights on, cutting through the pouring rain. The back doors are open and he is ushered in by the two soldiers on standby.  
Tom returns back inside to greet Matt and Edd. He does not grace roboTom with any acknowledgement.  
“Ah here,” He says as he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out an envelope. “My rent for the past few months and a few more on top of that.”

“Really,” Edd says, voice dripping with disbelief. “Months of disappearance and you stop by to nick Tord and pay rent.

Tom’s demeanor softens, “Look, I know this isn’t great right now but things are going and I swear this will all be-.”

Edd waves him off and turns to go. “You do what you’re going to do, no need to justify it to me.”

Matt is left standing awkwardly next to roboTom.

“It’s nice seeing you again Tom,” he says but there’s a trace of a quake to his voice. “See you again sometime,” and with that Matt is hurriedly exiting. roboTom examines him. He has the feeling he is missing a lot of context behind the person he was based off of, and that it isn’t all going to suddenly come loose at once.

Tom turns his glance back to roboTom. His eyes look big and open and sad for a moment before they focus in on the robot in front of him and a spark reignites as intrigue tears its way across Tom’s face.

“Why don’t you come along? I am sure the lab would love to see how you tick,” Tom says as his gaze travels the length of his metallic doppelganger’s body standing in the doorway. A soldier nearby hands him an umbrella. He opens it and holds it out to roboTom who takes it.

He blinks and looks at his human dual, “I am water resistant up to ten feet and even then I have backups available should anything go wrong.”

Tom regards him thoughtfully, “Very interesting.”

“Are you going to harm Tord?” 

“Depends in what manner you mean. Physically? No.”

roboTom is well aware there are many ways to hurt someone beyond the physical but he can’t bring himself to care much now that he has at least established Tord will live to see another day. He regards his flesh counterpart.

“So I am based off of you?” he asks. 

“Apparently, though the fact you willingly had sex with Tord begs the question how accurate that basis is.”

“There were… other circumstances surrounding that incident,” roboTom says slowly, uneager to revisit that particular can of worms again, for any reason.

Tom quirks an eyebrow, “Interesting, maybe you can fill me in on that later.”

“So I don’t have a choice of whether or not to come along?”

“You do, but you’re going to if my hunch is right,” Tom said, regarding him cooly.

“Yeah. Yeah I am,” roboTom says, extending his hand out to Tom. “Nice to meet the inspiration for my existence.”

Tom grasps it and shakes it once, firmly. “Nice to meet the effigy to my appeal. I’m sure we can do a lot more with you than… what you were originally designed for. Tord has a rapport for being rather… short sighted.”

“What do you have in mind for me?”

Tom shrugs, “Depends on what you can do and how quickly. But for now? My guess is reconnaissance. We’ll take it from there.”

Tom opens the door of the idling jeep and roboTom takes what is probably his first step every outside the house. His sensors tell him the ground under his foot is indeed wet and that the outside temperature is lower than anything he had previously recorded. He looks around. The street stretches beyond what he can visibly see and there is so many structures and organic life that he can barely catalogue them all in time before Tom clears his throat, centering his attention back on him.  
roboTom gets into the jeep next to a sour looking Tord who has his hands cuffed in front of him and head down.

“Do not worry, he said he will not harm you physically,” Tom tells his creator.

Tord’s slumped shoulders do not rise as he laughs in bitter amusement.

“Physically huh? Oh boy do you have a lot to learn.”

roboTom looks out the window as they begin to move. His speedometer measures their speed and he feels a rush of excitement as he finds himself moving at a pace he could have never imagined he could be moving.

He records the motion he sees of the world around him passing by, new, undiscovered, not quite like anything he had ever been able to see via the internet. He doesn’t even think he has the words to search things like this.

It’s indescribable.

He wants more.


	2. Int Main

“So,” Tom says regarding the robot in front of him with genuine curiosity. “Now that Tord has been sectioned away, I have some questions.”

“Alright,” roboTom says sitting rigidly in the chair. He didn’t really know or necessarily like this … friend? Acquaintance? Person of some emotional significance to Tord. He didn’t really have a frame of reference for who Tom was or how he and Tord knew each other the way he could glean from all his past data about Matt and Edd. This was new territory to chart.

“Is Tord your sole manufacturer and developer?” Tom says. He plants his hands on the table and gets his first look at the robot that isn’t cursory. He takes note of the careful craftsmanship, the fine details that went into making him feel like he was in the room with something eerily sentient. And maybe, in a way, he was. 

“As far as I know, he allows me access to the data base but apart from that I only have the signature attached to each patch to tell me who and where it is coming from and I am sure there is a way to falsify that information.”

“And you are attached to him.”

roboTom mulls the question over and is silent for a long moment.

“He is significant to me yes.”

“May I ask why?”

roboTom’s eyes narrow, “Why don’t you answer that question first?”

“Fair enough. We had relations which ended abruptly when several long-term plans required my assistance. I was forced to hastily break things off and while Tord did not seem to take it very well, I still indeed care very much for him because I have always found him to be a very intelligent and warm-hearted individual. Though whether he puts his talents to good use all the time is of questionable nature.”

“Is that a backhanded insult?”

“No I would say you are actually a weirdly flattering manifestation of those talents.”

“If you care for him so much, why do you treat him the way you do?” roboTom says, expression held straight as he delivers the question bluntly.

“Because it is more cruel to bait him on a relationship I am unsure I can give him in full than it is to fully let him go to live his life and move on,” Tom says and roboTom catches the slightest hint of pain in his expression before it flits away. “Alright that is my half, now yours.”

“He is the only person I know personally, so by default he is my favorite,” roboTom said dryly.

Tom laughs heartily at that statement, “I appreciate your wit, but you have a much more close vested reason, don’t you?”

“Aren’t you worried about any of this conversation reaching back to Tord?”

“No, he will no longer have access to your drives at will,” Tom said.

roboTom looks at his counterpart coolly, but he can feel his process looking at ways to escape. He really can’t. Tord’s “hilariously” named SkyNet Protocol doesn’t allow him to knowingly physically harm anything organic. So he is screwed.

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“Let’s continue our conversation, shall we?”

 

The empty husk of roboTom is presented to Tord. He looks at a moment, mouth hanging agape as a cold shock runs through him. He looks up at Tom for a stunned moment. Then he tries to stand violently only to find that he is handcuffed to the chair. He tries to yank the chair. The chair will not come lose. It’s bolted to the ground. Because of course it is. This is the Blue Leader he is face to face with, not his childhood friend.

“You destroyed him?” Tord says, face a mask of rage as he looks at Tom who regards him indifferently.

“I repurposed the metal for scrap because that is about all it is good for as far as I can see from your shoddy design,” Tom says, unaffected by Tord’s theatrics.

“I spent months, years. Some of my first code was towards this project,” Tord says as he finds himself trying to control the seething fury coursing through him.

“Really, you’ve been trying to make a sex robot that long?” Tom says, looking at him dryly.

Tord’s eyes squeeze shut in frustration and Tom is beyond surprised to see a small tear eek out on one side.

“Not. The. Robot. The AI. You destroyed my AI,” Tord said and he won’t look at Tom so he keeps his chin tilted up towards the fluorescent light. It gives his face a sort of angelic glow, he looks like a martyr might have, long suffering and agonized. His hair has always been this warm chestnut color but in the light it looks near golden. 

“He had thoughts, and maybe dreams, and the line between him and me is a lot thinner than you’d think.”

“Oh my god, aren’t you a little melodramatic? Why do you care what happened to your A.I.? It was based off me anyways?” Tom said, putting his hands on his hips and staring at Tord with marked irritation.

“Your personality as I remembered it was the basis for his. You were never him and he was….” Tord is silent a long moment because he doesn’t know how to describe what his robot meant to him. Yes he was proud he had gotten everything up and walking and functioning. But it was finding his A.I. felt real to him, felt like a tangible, whole person, with their own thoughts and aspirations and opinions.

“I didn’t kill your A.I.,” Tom said face softening a hair fraction. “I did however, transfer it, him, whatever, out of that body because I found it rather cruel to keep something so mentally mismatched to it’s body’s physical purpose. People would kill for that.”

The hollow feeling in Tord’s gut abates somewhat though he still can feel a sort of acidic ball of nervousness.

“Did you at least back him up somewhere when you did that? I don’t know if there is going to be some sort of hardware conflict or-.”

“Tord, what sort of ramshackle operation do you think we are running here? The base servers automatically store whatever new data is available whenever it detects you’re A.I. on the network. There is no more “monthly” backups. Every two to three hours is the backup rate it will be at now. And yes, there may be a few conflicts or kinks in the new system but we are going through trial runs.”

Tord’s body lets go of the rest of its tension as he slumps into his chair, letting out a long exhalation in the process.

“Really, I am not that mean,” Tom said pulling a chair up behind him and sitting in it. A light smile plays on his lips but dies as Tord regards him coldly.

“You left, without telling anyone, you take my robot and put me in a room without telling me,” Tord can feel the irritation at this entire situation returning. “I don’t even know who you are at this point. Maybe the A.I. has a better grasp than either of us.”

The silence settles between them as Tom looks at him. He just looks. Tord hates that. Because there’s no reading that deadpan face once it’s settled into a resolutely ungiving visage.

“Oh really?” Is the only response given. 

“He is kind, and curious, and sometimes bitingly witty, those were some of the building blocks I started with. What else? Sometimes stupidly reckless in pursuit of the truth-,” Tord sits up impatiently. “When can I have him back?”

“Experiment 70-M is property of the Blue Army now,” Tom says coolly. “If you would like to retain access to it we have a position to maintain 70’s software that has just opened up.”

“You are employing me to maintain my robot’s code, something I would have been doing already if you hadn’t hijacked him?” Tord says in disbelief. “Is this a round about way of saying you missed me?”

Tom’s expression doesn’t change, “I merely saw enormous potential in what you had made and believed it could be an enormous asset to our cause. The fact that you used some of my vocal and visual likeness is more evidence towards the fact that you are the one with unsettled feelings.”

Tom reaches down into his briefcase opens it, takes out a file and slides it across the table to Tord.  
“Here are the terms of the agreement. You help us reach a certain intelligence objective and you can have you A.I. in its upgraded state, free of charge.”

Tord flips through the file glancing through the pages.

“What kind of operation is this?” He says, incredulously.

“Red Army leader Todd, with his two commanders in chief, Patton and Saul have several POW’s of ours and I am looking to retrieve them within a six month time period. As far as I know they have us far out gunned, so the best we can do is try a long distance stealth approach. Collect intel, look for weak points and then strike when the time is right.”

Tord looks at Tom and there is something familiar about him now that he sees him looking passionate and afire talking about the mission.

“So you want me to train my A.I. to do all that?” Tord says uneasily.

Tom laughs.

“Alone? That’s a suicide mission. No, I merely want him to take intel from recon, cross examine, download the 3D modeling we have for the red army base and help us formulate a stealth operation and be it’s spear head. There will be men to back him up and extract him should something go awry”

“Okay,” Tord says, mulling the situation over. “When do I get to see him again?”

“As soon as you sign that paper making you an official Blue Army employee complete with an NDA and benefits,” Tom said.

Tord stared at the paper and then at Tom. He put up the middle finger of his right hand and signed the contract with his left.

“Fantastic, glad to have you on board,” Tom said, smiling broadly at Tord who just stared at him deadpan in return.

He opens the door and lets in two guards, one of which stands guard at the door, the other which approaches cautiously with a keyring in hand. Tord finds himself free of the chair. His eyes dart to the guard at the door and then back to Tom.

“What’s a matter, you afraid I am a runner?” he says bitterly.

Tom merely smiles benignly, “I just want to ensure I don’t allow my personal feelings to make me reckless.”

“Ah so you admit you have feelings,” Tord said, standing and letting the guard take him by the arm and recuff him behind his back.

“I never denied it,” Tom said, minute smile still in place.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The minute smile disappears all together as Tom regains his business like composure and addresses the guard standing by the door. 

“Alright, please escort us to the whereabouts of 70-M,” Tom says and with that the guard offers a salute and they turn to go out the door.

The grey gunmetal corridors are winding and labyrinthian, Tord loses count of intersections quickly and any hope of escaping without assistance is quickly dashed after all of five minutes of walking. They arrive at a sliding door and the security guard badges them in.

Inside is a lab the likes of which Tord has never seen or could have even dreamed of. It is massive, borderline warehouse sized and everywhere in it there are moving bodies and a constant drone of conversation and general rustling of materials.

Computers are uniformly distributed in rows in one section, while in another a sealed glass room has people moving inside it in bright yellow suits handling vials of what Tord can only guess. All along the side of the room are more doors, which he can only guess lead to more rooms. 

Though the room is loud and frenetic it quickly quiets to a hush as everyone notices the new arrivals. Soon the whole room is standing at attention, one arm at their side, other raised in salute.

“At ease, ladies and gentleman,” Tom calls and the room returns to it regular buzz though at a much more controlled level than was initially seen.

Tom works his way across the room and as he does a woman in glasses approaches him from the side. She has dyed blue hair and a friendly sort of smile and when she looks at Tom it seems to be with a mix of awe, respect and camaraderie.

“Hello Sir, I expect you are here to visit 70-M?” She says with a smile.

“Yes and the original developer is here with us,” Tom says with a nod to Tord.

“Ah!” The girl looks at him with excitement, seems to note the fact that he is handcuffed and looks at him with amusement. “Quite the project you have built, I would love to have further discussion about the design later.”

Tord looks at here curiously, “And you are?”

“Oh,” the girl smiles in minor embarrassment, “Sorry about that, name’s Laurel, I am the head of the robotics division, nice to meet you! You must be Tord from the patch notes, yeah?”

“That’s me,” Tord says. “And I would be curious to talk things over with you, if his highness permits,” Tord says, sending an annoyed glare in Tom’s direction. 

“Far be it from me to stop you from socializing. Laurel he is not to receive any classified information outside the 70-M project.”

“Understood sir,” Laurel says with a smile.

“Good, you two will want to get to know each other anyhow because you are both going to be assigned to the same project. Briefing will come later,” Tom says to Laurel’s waiting question.

Laurel claps her hands together, “Ohhh can’t wait, as well as getting to field test things!”

They arrive at the door and Laurel swipes her badge and then enters a long string of additional characters into the keypad and the door slides open.

They step inside and are greeted with a plain grey room save a table which, well, it isn’t his robot anymore but it is his A.I. roboTom perks up at the sight of Tord and he stands, revealing a frame that is much lighter, utilizing far less metal than Tord had and from the look of it the internal wiring is much more condensed.

“Lab liked a lot of your design choices, really quite impressive for a one man job, but obviously we had the tech to do things a bit more succinctly. But in honor of the original design we kept some of the trademark characteristics, basically just recast the face with lighter materials,” Laurel says looking excitedly between Tord and his robot.

“Wow, this is… something,” Tord said coming closer to get a better look.

“Does this mean he likes it?” Laurel said eagerly looking to Tom for reassurance.

“Roughly, he’s hardly one to give out a genuine complement, especially when warranted.”

“Hi Tord,” roboTom said, looking at Tord with a tentative smile.

“Password confirmation?” Tord says looking at the robot stonily.

“Password zero seven pound Hotel Echo November Tango Alfa India,” roboTom responds automatically.

Tom rolls his eyes in disbelief, “Really?”

“I want to make sure it’s my A.I.,” Tord says defensively. “I trust you as far as I can throw you, deserter.”

Tom’s face hardens as the nickname, “Listen Tord, I get we have grievances, but if you keep disrespecting me in front of my men, I will throw you in detention, write you off the mission and execute it without you.”

“Why don’t you then, jack my robot and do what you were planning to do anyways.”

“Tord,” roboTom’s voice pipes up between them. “Please do not sabotage this.”

Tord looks to his robot and back to Tom, “Alright, I am going to play along but I am doing it to make sure you don’t wreck my A.I. and a perfectly good robot. Not because I want to do you and your stupid mission some sort of favor.”

Tom relaxes back, looking satisfied, “As long as the result is that you tone things down, color me sated”

“Why are you handcuffed?” roboTom says looking at Tord’s wrists incredulously.

“Protocol,” Tom said.

roboTom looked at him a long moment and then, from some unseen compartment withdrew a tiny pair of clippers of some kind. Before anyone could really protest he cut the chain of Tord’s cuffs loose.

“Great his A.I. is a mutineer too,” Tom groaned as Tord turned around immediately to high-five his robot.

“Well from the looks of his code, he can’t willfully kill anyone, so we are safe on that count,” Laurel said with a shrug.

“Tord do you have plans to edit that section out?” Tom asked. Tord turned around to look at Tom.

“Wha?”

“The SkyNet section of code?” Laurel prompted.

“What about it?”

“You really want to send your robot against armed combatants without the ability to defend himself?”

“I, this is a big decision to spring on someone,” Tord said evasively. “ I don’t know, can I just-”

“I have no desire for the protocol to be changed,” roboTom said looking firmly to Tord and then to Tom and Laurel.

The three of them looked at him in surprise.

“Alright, well, between you two I guess the risk is yours to take,” Tom said. “Ideally the last thing we want is for you to be caught in a situation where physical force is needed, you are a scout after all, by name and design. But if this is the road you wish to go down, then the ability to self-destruct both the code and the robot is going to be necessary to ensure your assets are not replicable.”

Tord looked at roboTom a long moment. His creation gave him a small nod of approval.

 

“Alright then, that is how it has to be? Fine by me,” Tord said and then jerked his thumb at roboTom,  
“Him too.”

“Can I have a minute alone with my robot?” Tord said.

Tom nodded and Laurel followed him out with a last glance. As the door shut Tord turned back to roboTom.

“So, everything all good in there?” he said.

“You mean the code? I did a comparison to a server copy of my old code and so far all I can tell of what was added was compatibility related. Nothing in what is integral to, well, me,” he replied.

Tord relaxed, “Good I was worried about you.”

“Worried about your sex robot? Pathetic,” roboTom says, but it is with a smile in his voice.

“To be honest, between you and the flesh one out there,” Tord said, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the entrance to the room. “I don’t know who is more calculating.”

He turns back.

“Well, want to see my design schematics, I can show you on my back console,” roboTom says turning.

“See your lewds, why of course,” Tord says rubbing his hands looking at Tom with a mischievous grin he is unfortunately all too familiar with. roboTom sighs. Well. There is the guy he knows and has a Stockholm syndrome-esque appreciation for. Tord turns him around and tries to open the back compartment to his robot. Only to find there is no back console. Or at least one that he has access to. He notes a subtle square but he has no idea how to open it.

“It’s locked,” he says in disappointment, wrapping his knuckles on the square.”

“Oh. That is unfortunate,” roboTom said. “I do not think I can trigger the lock.”

The sliding door opens again as Tom and Laurel reenter.

“To do that,” Tom starts in a bored tone, “You will have to be given an access key. To be given an access key I will have to see some display of loyalty to the cause other than wanting your robot back. This is, after all, our property, and a lot of time and effort was invested into effectively constructing this prototype.

Tord looked at Tom started, “Prototype?” 

Laurel stepped, “Actually yes! This is more my area of specialty,” she said with a small grin and after throwing a glance at Tom and getting a small nod of approval in turn, she continued. “ We’ve only really replicated what you had in place with better materials and, uh, minus the add ons. Which obviously means there’s probably more room for code cleanup, and well that’s where you come in. I want you to work with my team as we get 70-M prepped for our mission, with you spearheading the software aspect and us integrating things to give him a larger range of capabilities in navigating the battlefield.”

Tord crossed his arms, “I’m not modifying the A.I. aspects.”

Laurel blinked at him in surprise a moment before continuing on, “Of course not, we merely desire assistance integrating the hardware software aspects. No desire to touch anything that makes 70-M, well, himself!”

She was once again just standing there smiling eagerly at Tord and he found himself cracking under the hopeful gaze. Tord’s posture loosened as he threw a glance at roboTom who threw a soft smile and a shrug back as if to say “She’s alright”.

“You’re lucky the kid is cute Tom, because I would have no issue telling you to pound sand,” Tord muttered, before letting his expression lighten as he turned back to Laurel. “Alright Laurel, I’ll help you make my sex robot a super soldier.”

Tord stuck out his hand and Laurel clasped it with a surprisingly strong grip, her eyes were this electric blue that matched her hair, she shook his hand firmly, he could feel it all the way up to his shoulder, and then let go. “Pleasure to work with you then.”

Tom smiled quietly to himself as he caught the flash of raw genuine intrigue and excitement on Tord’s face for a moment as he seemed to take in the situation and the new ideas and possibilities. 

“Bare bones, huh?” Tord said, looking to his robot with an appraising look. “Guess we will get to see what you can really do.”

roboTom smiled and shrugged. The situation for him was tumultuous as well but seeing Tord there, finally looking a bit more at ease made him feel like they had to be on the right track in some manner or another.

“Guess we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Recursion occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics and computer science, where a function being defined is applied within its own definition.


End file.
